Interview with Melissa Jagears & GIVEAWAY

Carol Award winning writer, Melissa Jagears, is a homeschooling mom who writes Christian Historical Romance into the wee hours of the night. She’s the author of the Unexpected Brides Series with Bethany House. The prequel ebook novella, Love by the Letter, is her ACFW Carol Award winning novella and is free to try.

Welcome back to the blog, Melissa. I’m so happy to have you here today. Congratulations on your upcoming release, A Heart Most Certain. Love this cover! 🙂

I love the cover too, and what’s really cool is I sent them a mockup of the idea I wanted and they followed it! Meaning I’m totally flattered that Bethany’s art department (which rocks!) thought my idea was a good one! The cover they sent me first was almost exactly how it looks now except it was just green grasses and bushes and a plain white dress. It was missing color, so I asked them to color the dress, but when they decided to add the flowers and the multi-colored sky I was in love.

That is SO cool! I love comparing the two. The final cover is just perfect! 😉 Can you tell us what you love most about your hero and heroine in this story?

I love Lydia King’s obsession with books. Being a bookworm myself, I have trouble keeping every single one of my heroine’s from being bookworms, but I played up the bookworm characteristic with Lydia for all it was worth.

I love that Nicholas Lowe is my most Darcy-esque hero I’ve written. I always have my college roommate (who I turned into a Christian romance reader almost two decades ago—I take pride in that) read a draft and this was her comment on Nicholas: He’s like a burned marshmallow. Dark and crusty on the outside; mushy and sweet on the inside. 🙂

Haha! Love it! 😉 Any plans for how you’re going to celebrate your latest book release?

Sleeping and zoning out watching North & South? Oh wait, that’s to celebrate the deadline I have to meet right before that happens. I’m trying to think up something really cool for readers. If anyone wants to leave a comment on a cool celebration they’ve seen other authors do that they enjoyed, let me know in the comments. I might try to work it in for this book or the next.

What book(s) are you in the middle of reading right now?

When I’m behind on deadline I don’t dare touch my fiction TBR pile, since I am not one of those people who can read a chapter and put it down, I consume them. If there’s a book I’m not ignoring responsibilities for, then I’m probably not enjoying it. But! I do work on other people’s fiction and read non-fiction.

Right now, I’m editing the next novel in the Eagle Harbor Series by Naomi Rawlings. I don’t know when it will release, but you meet the hero and heroine in Love’s Sure Dawn. I think Love’s Sure Dawn is my favorite because I love a redeemed antagonist. I don’t understand readers who are hesitant to read a book where the previous bad boy becomes the hero. Maybe that’s because when I met my husband he was NOT Christian Romance Hero material, but he is now.

I’m almost done reading Is God a Moral Monster? by Paul Copan. Almost done with that and it’s good and meaty.

I’m also reading Big Truths for Young Hearts by Bruce A. Ware with my 9 year old. It’s for children in upper elementary/middle school/junior high age. I heard about it on Christian radio as I was driving one day and the moment someone said it was like a systematic theology for kids I went home and ordered it. It’s actually a very good read aloud, there’s a lot of sentences that sort of repeat the same idea but said in a different way, but that’s probably really good for the one listening, especially when you’re trying to get a child to really grasp what the Trinity is since it’s not something we completely understand.

That’s wonderful. I’ll have to look those up!

I read that you homeschool you kids. I think that’s great! I was homeschooled as well. 😉 What is one of your greatest blessings of homeschooling your children? And what’s your greatest challenge?

The greatest blessing is spending time with my children, getting to really know them, figuring them out, and adjusting their schooling to meet their needs, so they can be the best they can be.

Greatest challenge…..spending time with my kids! Ha. They’re obviously great, but when I take personality tests, the scale showing how introverted you are is WAY up there for me. I don’t really get a break from ‘people’ anymore since they’re with me almost all the time. And when my husband comes home, he wants to spend time with me and sometimes by that point I’m like, “Can I please go hide in the closet or shed or garage or somewhere first? I just need to be alone staring at a wall for awhile or I might pop.”

If you could go back in time to any place and meet anyone, where would you go and who would it be?

I’m going to skip answering Jesus, because that’s a given, right? So I’d love to listen to a great theological thinker. Maybe C.S. Lewis. OH! I’d go to 1930/40s England and sit in on a Inklings meeting with him and Tolkien in attendance. Since there were no females in the group, I’d probably hide under the table so I could just listen, and then hope to join him on his walk home and simply ask him what he was thinking about theologically that day.

Aww, I LOVE that idea. How incredible would that be. 🙂 Thank you so much for joining us today, Melissa! I’m excited to read your next book!

GIVEAWAY!!

Melissa has graciously offered to give away a signed copy of A Heart Most Certain to one lucky reader! (International readers will receive an e-copy) Enter below and it could be YOU! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for entering! Signed copy is for US residents only. International winner will receive an e-copy. Contest ends August 30, 2016. The winner will be notified by email. Happy Reading, everybody!

About The Author

Savanna Kaiser loves writing and reading historical romance. Her recent work finaled in the Genesis (2018) and First Impressions (2018 & 2017) contests. She’s written over 50 published magazine articles, including a piece for Focus on the Family. She’s also a web designer, blogger, and the president of her local ACFW group. She and her husband love to hike, kayak, and explore Civil War battlefields, but their favorite days are spent at home in the Missouri Ozarks, entertaining their sweet two-year-old with lots of Legos and books. Visit her at www.SavannaKaiser.com

Very fun interview! And of course, giveaway! I can’t wait to read this book. I’ve loved each of Melissa’s past books. <3
As for the covers…hard choice! I do love the more colourful one, but that first one has a beautiful calm-feeling to it. So, I don't know. ^.^ Both are truly gorgeous, and definitely eye-catching!

Isn’t it amazing how much a cover affects the reader’s interest? It’s very powerful in convincing me to buy a book too. Even though I know they say not to judge a book by its cover, it’s hard not to sometimes. Hope you get to read this one, Kim. I really enjoyed it.

I definitely love the one with the flowers in the background and the added color! 🙂

What a fun interview! I love learning more about my “favorite” authors…well, they’re all my favorite 🙂 I’ve already read, reviewed and enjoyed this book so I am not entering the contest. I just wanted to pop in and read the post, share it on FB & twitter and comment. 🙂

I love the final version of this book. It’s such a wonderful story. The description of Nicholas as “like a burned marshmallow. Dark and crusty on the outside; mushy and sweet on the inside” is so apt. I can really relate to Melissa needing to hide in the shed or somewhere by herself. I work with kids at a school (my kids are grown and on their own). Though I really enjoy my job, I’m so happy to come home and spend the evening by myself. I spend lots of time home alone in the summer, but I’m not really alone because I have my book characters to keep me company. I am quite content!